"Um," said Ballard, discontentedly. "All of which makes us accessories after the fact in another raid on Colonel Craigmiles's range herd. I don't like that."
"Nor do I," Bigelow agreed. "But you can't eat a man's bread, and then stay awake to see which way he escapes. I'm rather glad I was sleepy enough not to be tempted. Which reminds me: you must be about all in on that score yourself, Mr. Ballard."
"I? Oh, no; I got in five or six hours on the railroad train, going and coming between Jack's Cabin and the county seat."
The posse members were tramping into the kitchen to ransack it for food and drink, and Bigelow stood still farther aside.
"You managed to gather up a beautiful lot of cutthroats in the short time at your disposal," he remarked.
"Didn't I? And now you come against one of my weaknesses, Bigelow: I can't stay mad. Last night I thought I'd be glad to see a bunch of the colonel's cow-boys well hanged. To-day I'm sick and ashamed to be seen tagging this crew of hired sure-shots into the colonel's domain."
"Just keep on calling it the Arcadia Company's domain, and perhaps the feeling will wear off," suggested the Forestry man.
"It's no joke," said Ballard, crustily; and then he went in to take his chance of supper with the sheriff and his "sure-shots."
There was still sufficient daylight for the upper canyon passage when the rough-riders had eaten Carson out of house and home, and were mounted again for the ascent to the Kingdom of Arcadia. In the up-canyon climb, the sheriff kept the boy, Dick, within easy bridle clutch, remembering a certain other canyon faring in which the cattle thief's son had narrowly missed putting his father's captors, men and horses, into the torrent of the Boiling Water. Ballard and Bigelow rode ahead; and when the thunderous diapason of the river permitted, they talked.
"How did they manage to move the sick man?" asked Ballard, when the trail and the stream gave him leave.